The invention relates to a heat exchanging member for, preferably, cooling a semiconductor module, having at a first and a second side, respectively, inlets and outlets, respectively, for a gaseous or a liquid heat exchanging medium, and having a heat exchanging component made of a highly thermal conductive material, such as metal, in which channels disposed side by side and running from its inlet side to its outlet side have been formed, such that medium flowing in through the inlet channels is constrained to flow at an angle to the direction of entry of the heat exchanging material to the adjacent outlet channels.
Such a general type of heat exchanging member is known from European Patent Publication No. 376,365. In this known member the heat exchanging component is built up of rows of thin wire members, which rows are of triangular cross-section. This gives an especially large heat dissipating surface area, resulting in a particularly high performance, because of the special way in which the gaseous heat exchanging medium is constrained to flow. However, this known construction is comparatively difficult to make and less suited to mass manufacturing. The present invention envisages providing a heat exchanging member, of the general type described above, which is free of these drawbacks and yet has a performance which almost matches that of the known heat exchanging member. Canadian Patent No. 1,238,428 describes a different type of heat sink for a semiconductor module, one which contains thin cooling fins in the form of protrusions composed of multiple fused thermal conductive spheroids. European Patent Publication No. 174,537 describes another type of cooling member for a semiconductor module, one which may be composed of copper fibers having an elastic felt structure. European Patent Publication No. 237,741 describes yet another type of device for cooling electronic components in which are provided a porous layer composed of sintered ultrafine grains and microscopic liquid-filled cavities which are positioned between a heat generating element and a heat sink element. U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,631 describes yet another heat sink apparatus for semiconductors in which a flow of cooling air is forced through various structural material configurations, such as honeycomb, corrugated, or serpentine. Reference is also made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,693 and to "Serpentine Copper Mesh Forms Heat Sinks," Electronic Packaging and Production (Newton, Mass., U.S.A.), Vol. 30., No. 10 (October 1990), p. 47 for additional teachings in the art regarding the use of corrugated copper mesh in a heat exchanger for electronic components. U.S. Pat. No. 4,531,145 describes another type of apparatus which comprises a substrate of sintered aluminum oxide to which chips are attached and with channels for a coolant provided therein. European Patent Publication No. 413,498 describes a different type of cooling element for electronic components which uses flat wire mesh packages for heat exchanging. European Patent Publication No. 194,358 describes another type of heat sink for electronic components which comprises a body made of specially sintered boron nitride with cooling fins.